Edinburgh-based Mocean Energy is expanding into the AI infrastructure sector with Blue Core, an offshore data centre concept designed to generate its own electricity while reducing the high energy costs associated with AI computing.
The company is currently raising Pre-Series A funding to support development of the technology alongside its established offshore power business.
The launch comes as demand for AI-optimised computing continues to rise. According to the International Energy Agency, global demand is expected to quadruple over the next decade, with AI data centres forecast to consume around 1,200TWh of electricity annually by 2035. At the same time, developers are facing increasing challenges from grid constraints, limited land and water availability, lengthy connection delays and local opposition to new sites.
Blue Core is intended to overcome these barriers by relocating AI infrastructure offshore. Each unit combines wave energy, offshore solar generation and battery storage to power AI server racks without requiring a grid connection. Individual units are designed to generate between 500kW and 1MW and can be linked together into larger offshore farms.
The system is aimed primarily at AI inference workloads and uses a closed-loop cooling system that exchanges heat with seawater. Mocean expects cooling to account for around 5% of energy use, compared with 15% to 35% for conventional onshore facilities.
Cameron McNatt, Managing Director of Mocean Energy, said: “We’ve spent years proving this technology works in some of the harshest sea conditions anywhere in the world. Blue Core takes that same proven system and points it at a much bigger problem. AI data centres are going to need more power than the grid can easily give them, and the ocean can provide that.
“We’re not trying to build another data centre. We’re trying to remove the barriers around power, land and social licensing that are currently holding the industry back.
“Because Blue Core is built like an assembly line rather than a megaproject, units are manufactured and deployed one at a time. This means a single unit and a thousand-unit farm come from the same building block and any unit can be pulled out for maintenance or a GPU upgrade without disrupting the rest. When sited in national waters, the farms also provide sovereign infrastructure rather than a lease on another country’s cloud.”
Blue Core is based on the company’s Blue Star offshore power platform, which has completed 18 months of full-scale testing with offshore energy companies and technology developers. Mocean is targeting first Blue Star sales in 2028, while Blue Core is expected to deliver its first offshore demonstrator from 2030. The company estimates the technology could save around 13 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2035, with its current £5 million funding round supported by £2.8 million in non-dilutive funding already secured.
Image: visualisation of Blue Core at sea, alongside other units in a Blue Core farm. Credit: BIG Partnership on behalf of Mocean Energy.
